Trust me, I'm not Tony

I passed up the opportunity to blog on the details of Gordon Brown's constitutional reform proposals this week because I wanted to save it for my weekend columns (for which I get paid!) Anyway here is my preliminary verdict, as published in this morning's Newcastle Journal. Some of it may be of particular interest to readers of Anglospheric tendencies.

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During the course of the long debate over whether the North-East should have an elected assembly, one of the most oft-heard criticisms of the idea was that “it isn’t what they’re talking about down the Dog and Duck.”

If the truth be told, it wasn’t, as the November 2004 referendum result seemed to demonstrate.

Today, you can hear the same arguments being made about the wider constitutional reform agenda – that it isn’t a subject uppermost in people’s minds, that it “butters no parsnips” as Tony Blair rather unkindly put it.

Maybe so, but one issue they are certainly talking about down the mythical Dog and Duck is trust in politicians - or rather the lack of it.

So it is against that backdrop that Gordon Brown’s decision to make constitutional reform the subject of his first Commons’ statement as Prime Minister on Tuesday has to be seen.

It was always likely that Mr Brown's first big political initiative as premier would be designed to tackle the "trust" issue, for the simple reason that it was fundamentally this that forced his predecessor out before his time.

By handing over power to Parliament, and ultimately the people, Mr Brown thinks he can restore the public’s confidence in Labour after the spin and sleaze of the Blair years.

So the underlying message on Tuesday was not so much "I am a political anorak who sits up at night worrying about how to change our system of government," but simply "I am not like Tony Blair."

Mr Blair, of course, never had any time for constitutional matters. The Scottish and Welsh devolution agenda was the legacy of John Smith, and Mr Blair had little alternative but to implement it.

English regional government was an anathema to him and he actively sought to hobble the project by refusing to grant the proposed assembly anything like enough power.

Meanwhile House of Lords reform was left unfinished, and the House of Commons largely marginalised during his ten years in office.

And far from giving away powers as Mr Brown is now attempting to do, he positively revelled in the exercise of them, from waging war to appointing Church of England bishops.

The most predictable element of Mr Brown’s statement on Tuesday was that the power to declare war would be handed to Parliament – but in effect, this change has already taken place.

After the last time, if Mr Brown were now to try to wage war without a vote in the Commons, there would undoubtedly be rioting in the streets.

Potentially much more significant, in my view, is Mr Brown’s proposal to give up the right to recommend a dissolution of Parliament – namely, to decide when a general election should be held.

In a majority government situation, it is unlikely to mean much. But in a hung Parliament, it could dramatically limit a Prime Minister’s room for manoeuvre.

Among the other main proposals, moving election days from Thursdays to the weekend and lowering the voting age to 16 may or may not boost the percentage turnout that has steadily declining since 1992.

A more interesting way forward here might have been to announce a further pilot project on electronic voting, or, God forbid, reform of the electoral system itself.

But on the plus side, holding US-style hearings on key public appointments like the Governorship of the Bank of England is surely an idea whose time has come.

And by giving up the power to appoint bishops, Mr Brown has moved to address one of those peculiar British anachronisms that somehow seem to survive all attempts at modernisation.

For me, though, the most disappointing aspect of the package was the rather dismissive air that the new Prime Minister adopted towards the plight of four fifths of the UK population – the English.

Mr Brown was right to say that the Tory proposal of “English votes for English laws” makes little sense, but neither does the current status quo of Scottish votes for English laws.

An English Constitutional Convention to examine ways of tackling the English democratic deficit is the obvious way forward, and it is disappointing that Mr Brown hasn’t established one.

He did announce the creation of Commons select committees for each of the English regions – but if he sees this as the way of rebalancing the constitution in the wake of Scottish and Welsh devolution, he is in for a rude shock.

Don’t get me wrong – the committees are a positive step, and together with the dedicated regional ministers, should ensure that issues of regional importance are taken more account of at Westminster.

But essentially, they are a means of helping to address regional economic inequalities, no more.

What they are emphatically not is an answer to the so-called West Lothian Question – namely why do Scottish and Welsh MPs still have a say over English-only issues when the reverse is no longer the case?

And I cannot help worrying that Mr Brown is getting into regionalism at just such a time as people are starting to think less about regional identity and more about Englishness.

What, briefly, of the rest of the week’s events? Well, Health Secretary Alan Johnson’s announcement of a moratorium on further NHS restructures will certainly help restore staff morale.

And giving local people in cities like Newcastle and Sunderland more say over council budgets is further proof of the new government’s determination to devolve power.

Attention over the past couple of days has focused on Mr Brown’s rather lacklustre performance at his first Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday - but that was never going to be his strength.

Launching a serious and policy-rich agenda was. And on that score, he is so far delivering.

Genesis 070707

As a Derby County fan with Arsenalesque tendencies, Old Trafford is not somewhere I would normally frequent, but I'm making an exception tomorrow for the return of Genesis to live performance after a break of 15 years. I've followed the band through thick and thin since the 1970s, despite - or perhaps because of - the fact that for most of that time they've been the most deeply unfashionable band in the world.

Like most of the "old" fans, I'll be hoping for a fair bit of "old" stuff tomorrow, and with the re-releases of the 1976-82 material currently on the market, that's a distinct possibility!

Of course, this tour featuring the Banks - Collins - Rutherford line-up is being viewed by many as merely a curtain-raiser for the long-awaited reunion of the "classic" 1970-75 line-up incorporating Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett, rumours of which continue to persist among the Genesis online community.

Be that as it may, I'll be making the most of the chance to see musical heroes live once again tomorrow, rain or no rain!

Brown and the Church

It was always clear that Gordon Brown's first big political initiative as Prime Minister was likely to be in the area of "trust," for the simple reason that it is the loss of trust in politics, and specifically in New Labour, that forced his predecessor out of office before his time and threatens to force him out of office at the next election unless he can tackle it.

So the constitutional reform proposals announced by Mr Brown yesterday have to be seen in that light. The underlying message was not "I am a political anorak who sits up at night worrying about how to change our system of government," but simply "I am not like Tony Blair."

To that extent, I think it succeeded in its aim and I look forward to what else comes forward - particularly on the "English/West Lothian Question" which was rather dismissively glossed over. But for now, I want to focus on one specific proposal, namely ending the Prime Minister's role in the appointment of Bishops.

The question of the relationship between Church and State has always been a vexed one, and Tony Blair's answer on this at his final PMQs when he told the Lib Dem MP Richard Younger-Ross that he was "really not bothered" about it was as spectacularly disingenuous as anything he said in office.

In fact Mr Blair was deeply bothered about the church-state relationship during his time as premier. On at least two occasions, he used his Prime Ministerial power to promote his own brand of muscular Christianity, appointing James Jones to the Bishopric of Liverpool within months of coming to office, and making Rowan Williams Archbishop of Canterbury in the belief that he was the man to bring about a spiritual revival.

He wasn't the only recent Prime Minister to take a keen interest in church affairs. In 1990, Margaret Thatcher famously rejected the church's preferred candidate for Canterbury, John Habgood, and chose the second name on the list, George Carey. Ironically this turned out to be a smart move as Habgood was an exponent of the wishy-washy liberalism which is slowly driving the CoE into the ground.

Under Brown's proposals, the Prime Minister would be presented with only one name, selected by the church's own appointments commission, which he would then recommend to the Queen. I am not sure however that letting the church effectively elect its own leaders makes any more sense than letting politicians chose them. Some sort of independent scrutiny would still, in my view, be required.

On the whole I think Mr Brown is right to want to give up the power - but the question of who or what he gives it too is a matter that needs further careful thought.

That Lib Dem reshuffle in full

Sarah Teather demoted, David Laws promoted. David Heath and Simon Hughes swap jobs. Er, that's it.

Seriously, it is high time Ming reshuffled himself. His credibility is shot to pieces over the Ashdown/Williams job offers, his support in the south is already under threat from Cameron's Liberal Toryism - and now Gordon Brown has stolen one of the key raisons d'etre of the Lib Dems and their predecessor parties over the past 30 years - the fact that they were the only ones committed to a thoroughgoing reform of our constitution and system of government.

At the last election, there were three other good reasons for voting Lib Dem - the fact that they had far and away the most decent of the three main party leaders in Charles Kennedy, their progressive taxation policies which would have benefited most hard-working families while making the absurdly rich pay a little bit more, and their opposition to the war in Iraq.

But Kennedy has gone, so have the progressive taxation policies, and Iraq won't be the defining issue in British politics forever. I am at a loss to know where on earth the Lib Dems go from here - and more importantly, so is Ming.

Will Cruddas rue the day he turned down Gordon Brown?

Thirty years ago, a talented young Labour backbencher by the name of Neil Kinnock was offered a job as a junior education minister in Jim Callaghan's government. He turned it down, and some thought he would see out his career as a member of the left-wing awkward squad alongside the likes of Denis Skinner and Willie Hamilton. Instead, six years later he was leader of the Labour Party.

Last week, the talented backbencher Jon Cruddas, who came a creditable third in Labour's deputy leadership election, rejected the offer of a government job from Gordon Brown. Explanations vary, but the consensus among Labour-watchers seems to be that Gordon offended his amour propre by not offering him a more senior role.

I supported Cruddas for the deputy leadership, and was glad to have done so. In my opinion he lost the election but won the campaign - much as Kinnock was said to have done in the general election of 1987.

That said, I think he has made a serious mistake by refusing Gordon's offer to join the government, one which, unlike Kinnock, he will come to regret.

I have no doubt that what scuppered Cruddas was Gordon Brown's decision to award the job of party chair, as opposed to Deputy Prime Minister, to the victorious candidate, Harriet Harman. Cruddas was patently running for the job of party chair throughout the election and, had Harman been given the DPM role, the job could still have been his.

Alternatively, he could - and should in my view - have been made Housing Minister having done so much to put the issue of affordable social housing on the agenda during the course of the campaign. But the inexplicable non-promotion of Yvette Cooper meant there was no vacancy in that role.

In the light of these unpalatable truths, Cruddas really should have swallowed hard and accepted whatever he was offered - apparently a Labour vice-chairmanship reporting to Harman coupled with a regional ministerial brief.

But he walked away from the opportunity to serve a Prime Minister who is currently carrying all before him, and having turned down Gordon once, I personally think it is unlikely he will be asked again.

So what now for Cruddas? Well, the Kinnock parallel is again instructive. Had Labour won the 1979 general election, it is inconceivable that the Welshman would have become party leader in 1983. Denis Healey would have inherited, and eventually the leadership would have passed to a right-winger like Roy Hattersley or John Smith.

In other words, it was Labour's defeat that allowed Kinnock to come to prominence in the early 1980s, as a fresh face untainted by association with what, at that time, was a much-reviled administration.

In the same way, if Jon Cruddas is to remain a major figure in the Labour movement, and if his critique of New Labour is to retain any potency, it will almost certainly require Gordon Brown to fail in his mission to renew Labour in office and secure that unprecedented fourth term.

Is Cruddas really playing for such high stakes? Or has he simply allowed his pride to get the better of him?

The Junior Reshuffle

Understandably, perhaps, in view of the events of the weekend, there has been very little MSM comment on the junior ministerial reshuffle besides this piece in Saturday's Indy. Which is a shame because for the political anoraks among us, the Full List of HM Government always provides plenty to chew on.

One appointment that has predictably already led to some lively debate on the blogosphere is that of Tom Watson to the whips' office. Watson left a comment on Guido Fawkes' blog last year stating that he would never return to government. In retrospect it is now clear he was taking the piss, but Guido, who took his original comments at face value, has now described Watson as "the most mendacious shit in the House of Commons."

All good fun...but the serious political point here though is that Watson has been brought back to his former role, as opposed to being promoted as undoubtedly would have happened had he not involved himself in the September 2006 "coup." This suggests to me that Gordon Brown is determined neither to punish nor reward those who forced Tony Blair to name the date for his departure, and is instead taking the very wise course of letting bygones be bygones.

Incidentally I did expect to see another of Watson's co-conspirators, Kevan Jones, joining the whips' office too - but with fellow North-East MPs Nick Brown and Alan Campbell already there, perhaps Gordon was worried about prompting accusations of a Geordie Mafia.

Inevitably, there are a few retreads - Jane Kennedy who previously resigned as a health minister on a point of principle, Joan Ruddock and Michael Wills to name three - but nowhere near as many as might once have been predicted. There are no comebacks as yet for such Brownite loyalists as Nigel Griffiths and Doug Henderson, for instance.

The most surprising retention to my mind is that of Margaret Hodge, who was thought to be living on borrowed political time after a series of highly damaging accusations about her time as leader of Islington Council. David Lammy, once ludicrously talked-up by The Sun as "The Black Blair," also lives to fight another day.

In terms of those now poised one rung below Cabinet rank, Blairite quartet Liam Byrne, Jim Murphy, Jim Knight and Pat McFadden all look well-placed. But Caroline Flint, tipped by many for Cabinet this time round, moves sideways and with Yvette Cooper and Beverley Hughes above her in the Cabinet wannabes pecking order, her career may now have peaked.

The list is also notable for one figure who is not on it - Jon Cruddas who apparently rejected a job offer. That is a subject deserving of a separate post which hopefully I will get around to later today or tomorrow.